A Dream Revisited - How Coda Could Have Been
by Bethgreenewarriorprincess
Summary: Daryl goes to save Beth at the hospital. But it goes horribly wrong, or so he thought?


Daryl couldn't see colors anymore. The world had been restricted to a dark tunnel and there was no light at the end, just a vast empty hallway of nothingness. It was odd in that moment because for all the color he couldn't see in front of his face as he held her against him, walking out of that hospital, he could remember precisely the exact blue of her eyes. He could remember how the light reflected on them when they were in sunlight and he recalled distinctly how they would glint like steel whenever she was pissed about something. He remembered all this as he carried her lifeless body down the hallway out into the eventual sunlight in the hospital courtyard. It was a bright day and it shouldn't be. The world should be cast in a pallor just like the shroud that covered his heart. He just needed to make it a few more steps, carrying her, and it was so hard. He was sobbing. He just could not fathom how the light had gone out so quickly.

In an instant, she had jammed those scissors into the cop's shoulder and the shot rang out and after that he saw red before he shot the bitch and then nothingness. He wanted to kill every single fucking one of them if the truth were to be told but he had lacked the fortitude to soldier through in that moment and go with his gut instinct to gun them all down. It had been replaced by a deeper, more powerful need to gather up this slip of a girl in his arms, his Beth, and cradle her to his chest. They'd had to make him leave as he sat there huddled on the floor, her hair cascading down to the floor, trailing in the blood that had just come from her head. It was all surreal to him, like this couldn't possibly be happening. Just moments ago he had touched his hand to her shoulder, assuring himself that she was real and now she was real, she was here but was any of this real? Was she really gone?

She would never open her eyes again. She would never know that Maggie was waiting for her outside the hospital. If she had known, would she have still done what she did? Would she have risked it? His mind seemed to harbor a thousand questions that had come to port since her body had hit the cold floor of that hospital. It was odd how that had affected him too. That he had at least wanted to catch her as she hit the ground. Oddly it didn't bother him that he was covered in her blood. Instead he never wanted to wash it off. He wanted it to be a part of him forever. Like her.

Maggie was sobbing when he reached her and Glenn and he didn't know what to say to any of them. He didn't know what to think. He didn't even know how to be. He felt like so much of his life was now tied up in the girl in his arms and it just hurt too fucking much to think that the world had snuffed her out far before her time.

As he got to Maggie he wanted to collapse in a heap on the ground but he simply couldn't do it. He kept walking all the way to the fire truck where they loaded her body for burial. He held her the whole way out of Atlanta cradling her against him, cherishing every single moment he got to hold her to him, stroking her hair back from her face.

If there was anything he could be thankful for in this whole fucked up situation, it was that no one had to put her down. It hadn't been necessary in light of the circumstances. He didn't think he would have been able to do it. If that made him a pussy then so be it. Merle could laugh his ass off for all he cared.

He didn't know where they would go from here but he knew one thing, he was wrong. You didn't get to start over. He had tried. Look where it had gotten him. He had loved this girl. He knew it now. He had been ready to admit to her once, but fate had intervened. Looks like fate had done its thing again. It was just the damnedest thing. Fate seemed to have it in for Daryl Dixon. He didn't know why but he guessed he accepted that at face value until he met Beth Greene. She had taught him that it could be different.

He heard her voice like it had just come up from her body. "You gotta stay who you are, Daryl Dixon." It was a mix of two phrases that repeated itself in his head constantly. The voice was a lot raspier than he remembered.

He opened his eyes and stared up at everyone standing over him. He was in a bed with white sheets and white walls and white ceilings. He looked at her, Beth, his beautiful girl. He saw her and was instantly confused. He had been in a fire truck with her body in his arms.

"What happened?" His voice was cracked and his mouth felt like sandpaper.

"You were shot in the head." She smiled softly at him and he reached up and brushed his hand over her hair, just to make sure she was real. She looked at him quizzically at his movement.

"Just makin sure you was real. If I was shot in the head, why ain't I dead?" He noticed for the first time that Beth was wearing her knife on her hip.

"Carol said it was somethin' about you having nine lives. The bullets in Dawn's gun were blanks and it grazed the side of your head. You're lucky. We're all lucky." She met his eyes. "I'm lucky." It was a hoarse whisper and tears crept into her eyes streaming out the corners and down her beautiful face. She was somehow even more beautiful with those scars that marred her skin.

He reached up and wiped her tears away. "Why did ya do it, Greene? You could have been killed." He hated to even think it. His dream while he had been unconscious had been real, too real. He shuddered involuntarily at the images his mind was still recalling from that brief nightmare.

"I wish I hadn't. You could have died." Her voice broke and she leaned over the hospital bed and hugged him to her, hot tears falling onto the leather of his vest.

He sat up in the bed and pulled her down beside him as he held her. He didn't know what the hell he was doing but he couldn't stand her crying and thinking she had done something wrong.

"It's okay. I'm still here." He whispered against her hair, the strands tickling his face and he could weep from the sensation because it meant she was here with him. At last.

"I'm never leavin' your side again." Beth vowed pulling away from to meet his eyes, sniffing back her tears.

He reached up and cupped her jaw. "Good, 'cause I ain't lettin' you outta my sight."

The others began to file in the room then.

"We should go." Rick said, nodding anxiously to the hallway where undoubtedly the rest of them stood waiting.

"Wait what happened to cop?" Daryl asked.

"Dr. Edwards is stitching her up now. She's gonna be fine." Beth said, helping Daryl to his feet.

He didn't ask any more questions. He didn't need all the answers because he had the only important one right beside him, her arm draped around his waist. He was still slightly dizzy so he let her, not giving two shits at the moment what everyone thought of their proximity to one another.

"Let's blow this place." Beth smiled up at him.

"Wanna burn it down?" Daryl smirked at her, which earned him the curious stare of Michonne which he chose to ignore.

Beth couldn't help the giggle that slipped from her lips. "Don't tempt me."

They walked out to the fire truck that Maggie and all of them had traveled here in. Daryl wondered briefly how he had dreamed there was a fire truck when he hadn't known how they had all gotten here. He didn't question it thinking again that the only important question he had ever had in life was right here. Where was Beth had plagued him for such a long time that it was almost strange to have an answer to it finally. But he did. And he didn't think too long on what might happen now and where they were all going. He had his Beth back. That was all that mattered.

He straightened up and she dropped her arm from his waist. He helped her up into the truck and he climbed in after her. As they rode along, each in their own thoughts but somehow still linked together by the unseen force that had linked them together ever since they left the prison together, Daryl felt it. She slid her hand over on the seat and placed her delicate fingers into his palm working her fingers down until they intertwined with his own. He looked over at her and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly. He was holding hands with Beth Greene. The world might be a shit storm out there but inside this truck with Beth Greene. Things were pretty much perfect.

That's it. That's the alternate ending that my brain came up with. I know it's not much but hopefully it might help someone. It certainly helped me. This is my ending of Coda.


End file.
